“Dear martingale.—­Don’t be too sure of Binnacle’s yacht.  There are still ten days before the season is over; and my ponies may lie at Coutts’s for some time to come.

“Yours,

“Bagnigge.

“P.  S.—­I write with my left hand; for my right is still splintered up from that confounded fall.”

III.

The tall footman, number four, who had come in the place of John, cashiered, (for want of proper mollets, and because his hair did not take powder well,) had given great satisfaction to the under-butler, who reported well of him to his chief, who had mentioned his name with praise to the house-steward.  He was so good-looking and well-spoken a young man, that the ladies in the housekeeper’s room deigned to notice him more than once; nor was his popularity diminished on account of a quarrel in which he engaged with Monsieur Anatole, the enormous Walloon chasseur, who was one day found embracing Miss Flouncy, who waited on Amethyst’s own maid.  The very instant Miss Flouncy saw Mr. Jeames entering the Servants’ Hall, where Monsieur Anatole was engaged in “aggravating” her, Miss Flouncy screamed:  at the next moment the Belgian giant lay sprawling upon the carpet; and Jeames, standing over him, assumed so terrible a look, that the chasseur declined any further combat.  The victory was made known to the house-steward himself, who, being a little partial to Miss Flouncy herself, complimented Jeames on his valor, and poured out a glass of Madeira in his own room.

Who was Jeames?  He had come recommended by the Bagnigge people.  He had lived, he said, in that family two years.  “But where there was no ladies,” he said, “a gentleman’s hand was spiled for service;” and Jeames’s was a very delicate hand; Miss Flouncy admired it very much, and of course he did not defile it by menial service:  he had in a young man who called him sir, and did all the coarse work; and Jeames read the morning paper to the ladies; not spellingly and with hesitation, as many gentlemen do, but easily and elegantly, speaking off the longest words without a moment’s difficulty.  He could speak French, too, Miss Flouncy found, who was studying it under Mademoiselle Grande fille-de-chambre de confiance; for when she said to him, “Polly voo Fransy, Munseer Jeames?” he replied readily, “We, Mademaselle, j’ay passay boco de tong a Parry.  Commong voo potty voo?” How Miss Flouncy admired him as he stood before her, the day after he had saved Miss Amethyst when the horses had run away with her in the Park!

Poor Flouncy, poor Flouncy!  Jeames had been but a week in Amethyst’s service, and already the gentle heart of the washing-girl was irrecoverably gone!  Poor Flouncy!  Poor Flouncy! he thought not of thee.

It happened thus.  Miss Amethyst being engaged to drive with her cousin the prince in his phaeton, her own carriage was sent into the Park simply with her companion, who had charge of her little Fido, the dearest little spaniel in the world.  Jeames and Frederick were behind the carriage with their long sticks and neat dark liveries; the horses were worth a thousand guineas each, the coachman a late lieutenant-colonel of cavalry:  the whole ring could not boast a more elegant turn-out.